Friday, September 13, 2024

Mike York & Gino Iannucci.


Action figures.

Fresh Jive dabbled in manufacturing action figures in the early 2000s. They made a Mike York figurine in 2001 and followed that up with one for Gino Iannucci in 2003. There was also a John Cardiel version a bit later on, but in a different style.

From a minimal amount of research, it appears Fresh Jive had a company called Dragon Models Limited from Hong Kong make the action figures. They specialize in models and military action figures.

For clarification purposes, sedition refers to actions that incite people to revolt against the government or an authority figure. A seditionary would be the person who causes the act of sedition.

This is a rather strange stylistic choice to make for an action figure of a pro skateboarder. At the same time, Fresh Jive wasn't afraid of edgy content. I honestly wonder if Gino's model actually existed as there is scant documentation of it on the internet. That's what prompted me to scan these ads.

Vert Is Dead will post on 9/19 and 9/20.

Mike: Big Brother - April 2001 Number 71

Gino: Skateboarder - March 2003 Volume 12 Number 7

4 comments:

Justin said...

I'm not sure what I'm posting for next week yet. It might end up being one day only. Check back on Monday.

Anonymous said...

Interesting ads which I'd not seen before. As far as 'seditionary' being edgy, I'd say you could swap it for 'anti-establishment', then perhaps swap that for 'rebel' then perhaps swap that for 'counter-cultural'. I imagine a lot of it was just that it was a nice word. I imagine part of it was that it was similar to 'sedentary' and the designer obviously liked nice chairs (these three ads featured chairs or someone sitting, as did other ads by FJ). Re the action figures, FJ filled a similar niche XL albeit on a smaller scale i.e. on the border of skateboarding & a wider music/fashion culture, so the action figures seem similar to things like the Beastie Boys or Money Mark figures which were out at a similar time. I'd imagine FJ just chose a pre-existing outfit from Dragon to make it financially feasible. There was obviously a market for figures wearing 'technical' outfits like these as Medicom did a bunch. If they could've made money by having the figures dressed in FJ I imagine they would've. I had a FJ polo and it was definitely part of my route away from wearing just branded skate tees.

Anonymous said...

And should've said, "great content". Thanks!

jaybird said...

awesome. i have the Cards action figure.

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